


The Magic Misfits

by MarcellusMiro66



Series: The Shadow Magic Universe [1]
Category: The Magic Misfits
Genre: Action/Adventure, Caper Fic, F/M, Fantasy, Psychological Drama, Superheroes, Thriller
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-03
Updated: 2018-06-03
Packaged: 2019-05-17 13:39:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14833305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MarcellusMiro66/pseuds/MarcellusMiro66
Summary: When street magician Carter runs away, he ends up in a quiet town known as Mineral Wells. But like any good trick, things change instantly as a greedy ringmaster named B.B. Bosso and his crew of crooked carnies arrive to steal anything and everything they can get their sticky fingers on. After a fateful encounter with Dante Vernon, the local purveyor of illusion, Carter teams up with five similar young illusionists. Together, using both teamwork and magic, they'll set out to save the town of Mineral Wells from Bosso's villainous clutches...that is, if their own personal demons won't hinder them from the task at hand first.~A modern reimagining of the Neil Patrick Harris-penned story with a superhero twist in the vein of a heist film.





	The Magic Misfits

**_AHH, AHH!_ **

_It was a dark and stormy night..._

_...and not a creature was stirring in fright._

_. . ._

_. . ._

_. . ._

_Well, there was just one._

_Your parent or guardian would most probably tell you it would be unwise to sneak off in the middle of the night. Some would warn you of being lost in an unfamiliar town, others would alert you of this decision affecting your health on a negative level. However, all would agree that there was a high possibility of kidnappers for hire or fun snatching you up in the middle of nowhere, far away from any sort of help. Even those who were street savvy enough to survive knew better than to creep away from the safety of your home._

_Of course, there was always that one exception of the bunch._

_In the darkness somewhere among the far edge of town, from a thick curtain of fog emerged a shadowy figure. The figure glanced back only once before making a mad dash for the train yard. Its silhouette - made visible by the illumination of distant streetlights - revealed that of a young boy._

_His name was Carter Locke. With blazing blonde hair and bright blue eyes, he was born to two beautiful and kindhearted people; his mother possessed a smile that shone as bright as (if not more so than) the sun on a perfect summer day, while his father could pull coins out of ears and make a deck of cards disappear/reappear without a trace. The three of them lived in a two-story red house with a white trim on a wooded/winding road outside a small northern city. It was right from the get-go that they loved each other no matter what mistakes were made. One afternoon, when Carter was merely six years of age, they simply never returned home that day. Or the next day. Or the day after that. Even when the police was contacted and consulted with, Carter was faced with and had to face alone the ugly truth._

_His parents had vanished into thin air._

_Their final vanishing act._

_Soon later, Carter was taken in by a distant relative by the name of Sylvester Beaton. His first name was difficult to pronounce, his surname was easy to renounce, and so he referred to him as "Uncle Sly". His friends (that is, if he **had** any) called him that because he was like a fox: smart, cunning, and manipulative. His nephew found this somewhat ironic, as he saw him as a weasel more than anything. He looked like one and acted like one, so this irony found some sense in him. A short and stiff nearly middle-aged man with long, greasy hair slicked back (apparently to him, ponytails don't make older men look hip, young, or cool) and whiskers of the unfortunately patchy beard that covered his pointy chin by a nose, this man was not particularly fond of being bore the burden of taking care of this young boy, as was the young boy who was not particularly fond of being forced to stay with this smug snake. New life meant new circumstances, though, so he had make the best of it...whether he liked it or not._

_Uncle Sly, much like his father, knew magic tricks, but he had added his own flare, giving them a rather sinister edge to them. Alas, Carter was naïve and innocent at the time, so you could forgive him just a tad when he asked his guardian to teach him. He eventually relented after a few pleads, but only when the realization hit him that there was a benefit in having a hapless assistant. As it turned out, Carter turned out to be a natural-born magician with hidden depths as he effortlessly replicated his uncle's magical tricks...and performed them even better than he ever could in his lifetime. Never the type of man to celebrate a nephew's newfound talent (dialing up his best and oldest illusion to date), he was the type of man to notice an opportunity knocking on his front door, begging to be answered. On his birthday, Uncle Sly decided to test Carter by sending him up to a random couple and performing his very first show. Unfortunately for him, it wouldn't be the last..._

_...for the rest was history._

**_BANG! BANG!_ **

_Snapping out of his little flashbacks detailing a simpler time and life, Carter ducked down and evaded the line of fire that Uncle Sly currently had him entrapped in._

**_"Carter! CARTER! Get back here, boy! Don't you dare run from me! I'm not going to hurt you!"_ **

_This was a lie. Given the gunshots fired at him mere seconds earlier, Uncle Sly fully intended to **murder** Carter. He was thankfully completely aware of this fact, a circumstance that he wouldn't have found himself had he not stumbled upon his uncle's Smith  & Wesson Model 5946 and a lengthy conversation that involved him "offing"  his nephew when and/or if the time suited him. Picking up the pace and clutching on to his brown leather satchel for dear life, Carter searched around in desperation to sense which of the trains was 'Chug-Chug-Chugging' down the tracks, out the yard, and into the great wide open._

**_CHOO-CHOO!_ **

_The blare of a train sent a shockwave into Carter's eardrums, and he covered them as a response. It certainly disorientated his uncle as well, for he could hear him yelling in curses from a distance when he recovered. Stumbling across a rail, his ears perked up at the sound of a quite familiar metal clanking. A currently colorful chain of convoy cars clacked nearby, catching speed and blowing away the thick fog. His vision now crystal clear, Carter leapt over the tracks and attempted to keep up with the moving locomotive, but the cars kept going and going and going. Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet, pink, golden, grey, pitch black, and bright white..._

_A multicolored handkerchief was one of the few memories left of his father._

_' Oh, Dad... I miss you and Mom...'_

_The voice of his infuriated uncle booming not that far off, Carter leaped onto the caboose and climbed until he reached the top, just as the cruel and gruff voice of his former guardian rang out._

**_"Carter! CARTER! I've got eyes and ears in every town between here and Timbuktu! You'll never escape! Do you hear me? NEVER!"_ **

_The heavens above seemed to answer his prayers for police sirens blared out as they approached Uncle Sly's location, ordering him to drop his weapon. Not one to surrender, he instead retreated into the night like the dirty coward he was, firing shots at them as he did so. He would live to fight another day._

_Breathing a huge sigh of relief, Carter plopped down onto the roof in weariness, no doubt that his previous sprinting made a lot more tired than he was supposed to be. His thoughts eventually trailed back to his father, prompting him to reach into his satchel for the small wooden box. Hugging it tight, he spared his former hometown one more glance and bid goodbye to the more caring people he befriended, such as Miss Zalewski. And to the man who tried to chase him down and kill him down...well, he could only wish that man a bad-bye. For he remained the bane of his existence, even if hate and loathing weren't the personality traits you would normally associate with the kindhearted and friendly young boy. With that, he climbed down into the passenger car, placed his satchel underneath his head for an improvised pillow, and drifted off to sleep. What dreams may come, Carter hoped it was full of hope, fate, destiny, adventure, and magic..._

_...and a beautiful looking girl with black hair and brown eyes._

_With flecks of amber as well._

_' Hmm. Weird...'_

* * *

In a quiet place far from the train Carter took, a middle-aged man with a black-and-white suit, white hair, and a black top hat was strolling down the streets after a hard day's night. He was about to enter a shop when a powerful surge of energy flowed through him. Turning around to stare off into the distance, a small smile grew upon the realization.

_He's coming..._

His name was Mr. Dante Vernon.

* * *

Carter had awoken to find that the multicolored locomotive had already stopped a good many hours after he hopped aboard it. For experience teaching him that a cop or the conductor would check each and every one of the train cars for stray passengers, he gathered up his belongings in a panic. As he did so, he mentally prayed that he wouldn't either get arrested, sent to a foster home, or worse - be reunited with Uncle Sly as an end result. Cracking open the heavy metal door to discover where fate had transported him to, imagine his surprise when his eyes eventually focused on a lush green forest that extended like a fuzzy floorcloth all the way towards an equally lush green mountain range in the not-too-far distance. Just falling behind the horizon was the sun; it was converting the few overhead wispy clouds to quite a lovely fuchsia while the blue sky darkened into evening. Standing along a nearby road was a sign that said: **_"Welcome To Mineral Wells!"_**

Either he was dreaming...or he had unknowingly died and went straight on to Heaven. Either way, he had been sleeping for a _very_ long time.

Using a nearby ladder, he climbed atop the train car in order to get a much better look of the seemingly idyllic town before him. From what he could tell, it was a quiet community blanketed with flashing lights and sprawling buildings overlooking it from a hill; the flashing lights were spread out to the north and east of the tracks, while the windows glowed with the illumination of a billion fireflies. A gigantic fairground - where more flashing lights of a traveling circus were beginning to turn on - was closer to the train yard and across the broad gravel lot, just west of the twilight town. The sounds of positivity and content filled his ears, which consisted of laughter, music, and even shrieks of excitement. And then, there were the satisfying smells; it completely overwhelmed him and allowed for plausible breathing. From popcorn and corndogs to cotton candy to candy apples, his stomach growled in dissatisfaction, fully aware that it wanted food and wanted it now.

He was just about to hop off the roof, too...had it not been for the untimely arrival of a small red car. Knowing that it would be considered deficient if anybody saw and reported him, Carter had to lay down on his empty stomach and flatten the rest of the body against the rooftop. A dozen differently-shaped men, women, and children dressed as clowns began to hop out of the tiny scarlet automobile one after another until they were gathered together in a very tight group of polka dots, silly stripes, and decently-applied makeup, all of whom had a bag of money in their possession. Staring down a single black train car on its own track, every single one of the clowns emitted a frowny face instead of a sincere smile that they were trained to hold.

Honestly, Carter believed to be imagining things. When he made certain that he most certainly wasn't, he shuddered with fright. He wasn't particularly fond of clowns, for his uncle was the first thing that came to mind. Even so, he couldn't help but feel pity for them.


End file.
